[sf-perl] running multiple perl versions

[Chris Weyl]

On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 2:45 PM, Joe Brenner <doom at kzsu.stanford.edu> wrote:
>
> By the way, the other night brian d foy was asking me if there
> was a way for a debian-based distro to manage the dependencies
> of multiple perl versions.  I thought about it a bit, and I think
> the answer is essentially "no".
>
> It *could* be done, but it would require doing what the postgresql folks
> have been doing: they put the version number in the package name, so you
> can install different versions of postgresql simultaneously. And in the
> case of perl, that would mean creating new packages for every (or at
> least many) perl modules, also with the version in the name.

I've done this at $work for RHEL/Fedora/SLES boxes, and every time
I've had to do some pretty serious rework to the rpm specs to 1) not
clobber the system perl or each other and 2) implement a dependency
system that works independently of the system perl.

Since regaining what was left of my sanity, I've pretty much given up
on that approach: I tend to install "our" perl into /opt/perl and then
manage the installation via git.  It allows for easier testing of code
w/updates from the CPAN, as well as making deployment easier ("git
pull; git co new-production" against a bunch of s390x boxen, for
instance).  It "feels" a little messier, but it does the job quite
well with a minimum of fuss -- and an easy, known backout plan if
Something Bad happens.

                                   -Chris
-- 
Chris Weyl
Ex astris, scientia